


Endurance

by Cartadwarfwithaheartofgold (manka)



Series: Manka Writes Friend Fiction [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Aromantic, Asexual Character, Banter, Blood and Injury, Broken Bones, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:41:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27659654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manka/pseuds/Cartadwarfwithaheartofgold
Summary: A mission to explore ancient Elvhen ruins with her team leads to a fight for Trev's life. In the end, all she can do is endure until they can make it to her side.
Relationships: Cassandra Pentaghast/Female Trevelyan, Female Inquisitor/Cassandra Pentaghast
Series: Manka Writes Friend Fiction [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022509
Comments: 10
Kudos: 46





	Endurance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [natsora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/natsora/gifts).



> This is for Natsora, who won 2nd place in my Friend Fiction Giveaway! Thank you so much for participating and being awesome to work with! <3

Trev is reminded, oddly, of Val Royeaux. The walls surrounding them stretch upwards as far as the eye can see before vanishing into inky darkness. Through that blackness, she can just make out the shape of curling vines, a canopy of green much like the silk ribbons high above the famous Orlesian marketplace.

She wonders what this ancient, Elvhen place looked like in its prime. Did it glitter and bustle? Was it silent and holy? What kind of people waltzed through its halls? Were there only penitent sinners come to pray to their Creators, or did people come to celebrate their lives?

The ruin itself gives precious little clues. The halls are silent but for the sound of their footsteps. The only sign of life is the rustle of their clothing and armor, the rasp of their breathing.

“Do you know what I thought this morning when I woke up, Chuckles?”

Trev’s lips twitch, but she doesn’t laugh. Cassandra scoffs, a barely there sound on her left.

“I’m afraid if I wondered what you were thinking often, I’d have more questions than answers,” Solas sighs.

Varic continues, undaunted, while they tromp through the dark hallways. “I thought to myself ‘you know what I haven’t experienced yet? Getting mauled in a musty old Elvhen tomb.’”

“This is not a tomb,” Solas corrects wearily.

“Yet,” Varric grumbles. “Let’s make sure we don’t die here before we make assumptions.”

Cassandra clears her throat _pointedly_. “You did not have to come.”

Varric shoots a look over his shoulder that manages to blend the perfect amount of unconvincing innocence and wicked humor. “And leave you three without Bianca covering your asses? If something happened I’d never get over it.”

Cassandra opens her mouth to argue and Trev can already hear both sides of the bickering playing out. Thankfully Solas thrusts out an arm, stopping the debate about Varric’s lack of enthusiasm cold and almost rebreaking the dwarf’s nose.

The hallway opens into a great, echoing space. Trev can see the problem over Varric’s shoulders without either man having to say a word, but Solas turns anyway and holds her eyes.

“The floor is perilously unstable, Inquisitor.” Solas reports crisply, tipping his head to indicate the rotting wood.

_Nothing is ever easy._

Trev looks past him, frowning. They _need_ to get through, and she’s the one in charge of figuring out how to do it, even when it feels impossible.

 _Especially_ when it feels impossible.

“I think if we stick to the sides we’ll be fine.” Varric’s soothing optimism almost settles her jangled nerves. _Almost_.

“You’re certain?” Cassandra snaps out the question before Trev can. Varric throws up both hands in defense.

“Listen, you two ladies stick together and I’ll go first since I’ve got all this dwarven mass.”

“You are certainly quite dense,” Solas, somehow, doesn’t crack a smile. Trev can’t even be sure if he _meant_ to be funny, but the statement makes Varric sigh with weary martyrdom.

Trev holds her breath when Varric creeps out into the room, sticking close to the wall while he carefully inches forward. He’s a good distance away before Solas follows almost silently, footsteps much lighter.

“You next.” Trev offers, inclining her head.

“I prefer if you lead. I will guard your back,” Cassandra’s declaration is quick and sure, without even a hint of hesitation, and it brings a genuine smile to Trev’s face. She doesn’t argue, stepping into the echoing void. Within moments, while she creeps along in Solas’ wake, she hears Cassandra follow.

Solas wasn’t wrong about the flooring. It sags and buckles under her feet, but thankfully supports her weight as long as she steps slowly and carefully. They’re almost to the next hallway when she hears an unfamiliar scratching.

The men don’t hear it, but when she catches sight of Cassandra's face, Trev knows it’s not in her head. Dark eyes narrow and focus on the space between them, searching for the source of the noise. Trev reaches for the sword on her hip, wrapping fingers around the hilt.

They’re still not prepared.

The silence is shattered by the sound of crumbling plaster and a shrieking groan that startles a yelp from Trev’s lips. The arm that punches through the wall is mostly bone with only bits of desiccated skin hanging in ribbons from it. Long, claw-like fingers search the air blindly and both Cassandra and Trev stagger away from its grasping search on instinct.

It’s her first mistake.

She realizes it the moment her booted heel comes down on nothingness, but she can’t adjust her momentum. There’s nothing to hold onto, nothing to steady herself with. The floor beneath her buckles with an audible crack.

For a moment, Trev is suspended in the weightless abyss. She can see Cassandra's mouth open, _hear_ her startled, shocked shout of alarm, but there’s nothing to do but fall into the darkness below.

The shield strapped to her arm saves it from breaking clean in half, but it doesn’t cushion the impact of her body onto hard stone. All the breath is forced from her lungs in a grunt that isn’t quite a scream, but only barely. She hears the clean snap of _something_ beneath her chainmail, feels the piercing pain of cracked ribs that causes her vision to swim.

All she can do is lie on the ground gasping for breath. She hears commotion above, the sound of her name and _Cassandra_.

 _Cassandra_. If she can push herself up off the ground for anyone, she can do it for Cassandra and the others.

“I’m here!” Her voice trembles, each breath causing the throbbing ache in her abdomen to flare and pulse. She’s afraid they can hear the way the words catch in her throat.

From far above, _too far_ , Cassandra shouts down. “Are you injured?”

“Seeker, _of course_ she’s injured. The question is _how bad_?”

Varric’s wry statement isn’t off the mark, but it gives Trev the moment she needs to try and drag herself to her feet. An ankle protests bearing her weight, but with gritted teeth she manages to stand and support herself with one palm on the rocky wall she landed beside.

“I’m going to need help getting back up.” Trev admits. She hears Solas mutter something in Elvhen she suspects is a curse.

“There is a way down.” Cassandra declares, almost as if she could make it true _just_ by saying it. A warm rush of admiration almost makes Trev smile through the pain.

Varric huffs an irritated answer. “We can all see there’s at least _one_ way down, Seeker.”

It’s enough to make her choke on a laugh that causes a bright flare of agony. Her eyes are adjusting to the inky blackness surrounding her and she can make out the shapes of pillars supporting the crumbling ceiling above her head and a darker splotch that _may_ be a set of stairs on the far side of the room.

She takes one staggered step forward, then another. “There may be steps, I-”

She never gets to finish. She feels the energy in the air before she sees anything and it makes her stop short. She knows that sensation now, knows it like a lingering bad dream. It starts in her left hand, a burning tingling that travels up her arm and then dives into the pit of her stomach like lead.

Above her head, the air snaps and ripples. Green light spills from inside her gauntlet, from the cracks in the world appearing above her.

“Inquisitor!” Solas shouts.

Before she can answer, the rift appears in all its haunting, awful beauty. The light illuminates the room like a ghoulish sun while the energy swirls and bubbles in the room, prickling every inch of her skin.

Trev casts a horrified look up above her to see the shadowed faces of her companions watching in stunned silence.

Varric moves first, unslinging his unwieldy crossbow in one deceptively smooth motion and opening the expanding arms. His smile is as easy as she’s ever seen it, but there’s something flinty in his warm eyes. It’s exacerbated by the green glow, surely, but she’s never seen Varric look _angry_ , and she swears he almost does.

“Better go find the stairs, Seeker. Bianca and I will pick them off from up here.”

The words are barely in the air before Solas and Cassandra vanish from view, the rattle of armor fading while they run to try and get to her.

Something shrieks behind her. She’s afraid to look. The fear tastes like iron in her mouth mixed with the dust from a grave.

“Eyes on the prize, Ace.” Varric’s steady, false cheerfulness is a balm while he fires a bolt over her head. She hears it sink into the flesh of some monster or the other with unerring accuracy and the resulting screech of pain.

Eyes on the prize. She didn’t have to win against the rift, she simply had to endure.

Trev had always been good at enduring.

The blade fits in her hand just like it always has, her fingers folding around the hilt _easier_ than breathing past her cracked ribs. She’s barely drawn it before she swings back to the rift and the monsters, watching wraiths and demons claw their way into her world.

She wonders if they smell her fear, because they all begin to lurch towards her at once. Another bolt stuns a wraith, but not before it launches an attack towards her. She manages to hobble out of the way on her unsteady ankle.

It gives out just as a terror demon bursts from the floor in front of her. Trev falls to her knees before it, its scream of triumph ringing around her. Claws slice through the air and thunk hollowly against her shield, sending bright shocks of pain down her arm. She grunts and thrusts back, knocking it off balance just enough to slice at its twisted legs with her blade.

She’s so preoccupied she misses the despair demon flitting around the edges of the chamber. Her first clue to its presence is the sudden blooming pain in her shoulder. She lets out a ragged, startled cry and looks just in time to see a pointed shard of ice sharp as an arrow embedded in her plate mail.

Bianca fires another bolt above, but it isn’t enough. It doesn’t stop the terror demon looming above her from grabbing her by the shield, talons scraping sickeningly against the metal. It hauls her into the air until she dangles like little more than a rag doll.

Something else snaps, she feels it all the way to her toes, yet she hardly feels it at all. She knows the arm strapped to her shield is bent at an unnatural angle, but it doesn’t matter any more than the pounding in her head or her panting breaths.

She must _endure_.

She grits her teeth and thrusts her blade into the monster’s abdomen at the same time another bolt buries itself into its gaping maw. The screaming becomes a garbled sound, but the demon doesn’t simply _drop_ her.

It reels back and launches her through the air until she crashes into the stone wall beneath where she fell into this cursed place. All the air in her lungs is expelled on a strangled scream when she hits, trailing into a gasping moan as she slides down in a pile of agony and limbs beneath it.

“Ace!” Varric calls. “Talk to me!”

She can’t. She can hardly force herself to her knees, the urge to curl into a ball overwhelming. Her vision swirls, her head pounds. Everything _aches_.

“Trev!” Varric sounds desperate. Varric _never_ sounds desperate.

She tries. Maker knows, she _tries_ to answer him. But when she opens her mouth all she can taste is the blood between her teeth. She coughs on it weakly, her one good arm still searching for the sword she dropped.

She doesn’t find it in time.

It’s just a wraith forming above her, and there’s a bitter irony that it’s _just_ a wraith. She’s so weak, even _it_ could easily finish her off, and she’s powerless. _Helpless_.

Energy crackles around the demon, she can feel it in her teeth, the slick pulsing heat of it beneath her armor, burning her skin already. Trev looks up through bleary vision, fixed on the hollow face of the creature.

 _Endure. Even at the end_.

She takes a breath that rattles in her chest. For a moment, she swears she can smell home again. She can taste the clean tang of sweat in a sparring ring, feel cold wind against her cheeks.

A blade appears from the shadows and cleaves through the creature, splitting it like silk into tendrils of energy that vanish. Trev can barely focus past her throbbing heartbeat on the wild dark eyes that appear, or the heavily accented voice calling her name.

 _Home_.

She swallows the word instead of releasing it to the air and gives in to the blackness swirling around her vision before Cassandra can even catch her.

* * *

When Trev wakes, nothing makes sense.

Every inch of her aches as if she’s gone seven rounds with Bull in the ring. She can taste iron in her mouth, on her chapped lips. Her head throbs and if she tries to breathe too deeply pain flares up around her middle.

It takes a moment for her mind to catch up, but when it does, there’s only one word she can think to say.

“Cassandra?”

She opens her eyes, searches the slice of camp she can see without moving her head, panic throbbing alongside the pain in her ribs. Cassandra had been there, Trev _saw_ her, where…

A hand insistently presses her back onto the cot she’s trying to push herself off of. “You need to rest.”

The tone is clipped, stern, but there’s warm relief underneath it. Trev turns her face to study the sharp angles of Cassandra's features. Bruise-like shadows ring her eyes, a nasty scrape traces one cheekbone. Trev drinks it in, blinking owlishly, before she speaks. “Are you hurt?”

Cassandra rolls her eyes skyward like she’s silently praying to the clouds above for patience. Varric’s laughter breaks from somewhere in the distance, along with the sound of someone throwing a new log onto a crackling fire. It’s all a familiar tune; Inquisition camps always sound the same, and that plus the comforting weight of Cassandra's hand makes her relax.

“You were injured. Gravely.” Cassandra states the obvious without sounding patronizing, and Trev is grateful. “The rest of us are only bruised.”

“What happened?” Trev asks.

Cassandra removes her hand and Trev mourns the reassuring touch almost as soon as she does. Her friend drops her eyes to fiddle with something, a poultice of some kind. “The rift opened and we rushed to your side. You fell and we… we brought you here.”

“How many demons? Is the rift still open? We need to-” Her mind is already swirling, planning, and she misses the way Cassandra stiffens while she speaks.

But she can’t miss the pain beneath the words when Cassandra snaps back. “You do not need to concern yourself with that now.”

Trev falls into an awkward, painful silence that stretches far too long. She doesn’t know what to say to fix it, to erase the shattered fear lurking in Cassandra's gaze.

“You frightened me.” Cassandra admits softly and Trev’s heart is squeezed by icy regret. She can do nothing but stare, wordless, into Cassandra's open face and all the tumultuous emotions hidden in plain view there.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know.” Cassandra smiles, the saddest tip of her lips at each corner, before shaking her head and holding up a vial of medicine. “Now, drink this and _rest_.”

She doesn’t argue. Trev allows Cassandra to bring the vial to her lips and she sips it obediently until it’s gone before collapsing backward.

“She awake, Seeker?” Varric’s voice booms. “I’ll take my turn watching if you want.”

“No.” Cassandra declares imperiously. “ _I_ will watch her.”

Trev falls back asleep to the sound of Varric’s ringing, knowing laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> Manka writes it all at: [@cartadwarfwithaheartofgold](https://cartadwarfwithaheartofgold.tumblr.com/)


End file.
